Shown off by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos at an event in Seattle, the device has a 4.7in screen, a 13-megapixel rear camera, and an innovative system of cameras and sensors on the front of the phone to track head gestures from users, and change the display accordingly.

The Fire Phone also has a feature called Firefly that identifies songs, films, TV shows, books and products, then directs people to buy them from Amazon. It will also identify signs, artworks and wine labels, and provide more information on them.

People paying $199 for the Fire Phone on a two-year contract from US mobile operator AT&T will also get a year's free subscription to the Amazon Prime subscription service.

"The technology may be new, but the promise implicit in the Amazon phone – that it will make you faster, sharper, smarter, more desirable – turns on a simple and age-old question of salesmanship. It doesn't matter if the only features you use are text, email, Facebook and Candy Crush. (And maybe the map.) Neither does it matter that you already have multiple devices to take care of streaming music / watching video / reading e-books / processing reality on the go, including two eyes and a brain. It is new and therefore must be worthwhile."

"Bezos has his work cut out. Launching a phone is easy. Making it a success is not - as Facebook and HTC learnt with their HTC First phone, released in April 2013 on AT&T and unceremoniously dumped a month later. Amazon is a big noise on the desktop. It still has everything to prove in mobile."

But what do you think? Does the "dynamic perspective" system and/or Firefly make it a must-buy? Does the Fire Phone have a serious shot at tempting iPhone and Android users away from their current devices? What features would you rather have seen put in (or left out) from Amazon's first smartphone?

The comments section is open for you to give your views on Jeff Bezos' new gadget.